These were too excellent and well-balanced teams, but the more I read about the state of goaltending before 1900, the less it impresses me. Goals with crossbars weren't even invented until 1899! Before then, there were upright polls with an imaginary line at a certain height and the ref acted like an umpire in baseball in calling when the puck went to high to be a goal! And I also saw Billy basically offer no rebuttal to BBS's criticism of Collins.

So with two teams that are otherwise excellent, I went with the more proven goaltender and significantly better coaching.

level of competition and degre of dominance need to be considered though.

We're talking about whether Collins is, approximately, the best 100th goalie of all-time. He's the best post-Paton, pre-Hern/Hutton/Nicholson/Moran goaltender (if you see another candidate please let me know). There's no room for a guy with that credential over guys who were 10th-15th best of their generations?